Priority Beacon
Summary The Priority Beacon is an end-game structure that can only be built on specific yellow blocks that can be found scattered around the Mainland. It is a weapon that activates continual Orbital Bombarment when there's enough of them built. It is the most powerful, however most expensive weapon in the game. Building the Priority Beacons The Priority Beacon is the only structure ingame with a flexible price - the price varies for each team depending on how many players the team initially started with. This makes it the most expensive structure in the game, costing a whopping 14,500 iridium on a team with two Players. Constructing a Beacon will require several minutes of work by a Fabricator, but more Fabricators can be built to speed up the building process. Beacons can only be built on Gold Well Pipes, which are scattered around the Mainland. A number of Beacons, (also dependent on the initial number of players on a team) has to be completed before any effect is reached. Once a Beacon completed, it has the appearance of a tall antenna with a small base, with some parts the color of the team that build the Beacon. The Beacon has fairly low health and should be protected by whoever built it. If you are on the team building the Priority Beacon, it is recommended that you first build heavy defenses around the Beacon Blocks before actually building the Beacons. This probably includes Walls, Point Defenses, lots of Turrets, Arc Turrets and several Shield Generators among other defenses. You will then have to defend in this fortress for at 2 and a half minutes after all the Beacons are built until the Orbital Bombardment starts. Make sure to have a stable iridium supply before beginning construction, or the defenses may cease functioning due to a lack of power. Having your Beacon destroyed will result in you having to build it again, a very time and iridium-consuming process. Since a message in chat announces every time a Beacon is built, it might a good idea to first fortify all the locations and then start building the Beacons. Orbital Bombardment Upon completion of its construction, a countdown of 150 seconds will begin, with a warning in the chat every 15 seconds notifying all players of time remaining. At the end of the countdown, Orbital Bombardment will begin, which is essentially a constant barrage of Laser Strikes targetted at enemy structures. This is extremely destructive to enemy teams and is able to wipe out even the most fortified bases. This bombardment will continue as long as there are still enemy structures remaining and the Beacon is not destroyed. After all enemy strctures are destroyed, the beacon will start targetting enemy players as well. The lasers all originate from the sky at random angles. They may have trouble damaging structures located underground or in Sea Bases, and will instead damage the terrain above them first, or may even strike the structures of the team that built the beacon if an enemy structure is beneath them. The random angles may also cause the lasers to damage Spires if enemy structures are close to them. The Lasers Strikes do not directly target players until all enemy structures are destroyed. Countering the Priority Beacon The power of the laser strikes is extreme, and no barrier will survive indefinitely. However, countless shields and terrain can buy you time. This being said, Skybases are most vulnerable to the Orbital Bombardment, while Sea Base are the most protected. It may be a good idea to sneak up on your enemy's base if you know they are building a Priority Beacon and build many small, cheap structures, such as Light Source, so when Orbital Bombardment does begin, it will attempt to hit those structures, destroying the base above in the process. However, this does not work if you tried placing said things near the Beacon, the lasers do not target anything in the Beacon's proximity to avoid it getting blown up by incident. Because of this, it is very important to disable the beacon as soon as possible. Thankfully, the Beacon has a very low amount of health, and repairing it will require a percentage of Iridium equal to how much Iridium it costs; repairing 66% takes 16500 (with a bad cost of 25000), more than ten times the cost of the SSIM, currently the second most expensive structure. A partially complete blueprint takes a substantial amount of time to destroy, requiring several minutes of Laser Drilling to destroy. It may be better to allow the Beacon to complete building before attempting to destroy it. If the Beacon is unguarded but almost finished, place down a couple Satchel Charges under the block near it, so when it finishes you can quickly blow it up. Using a Laser Drill is a good idea, as it will effortlessly and quickly destroy the Beacon in just a few hits. Trivia * The Priority Beacon is not the actual weapon that bombards enemies, but a signal to the team's mothership that they have asserted dominance over the planet, and are capable of sustaining iridium production. This is what tells the corporation that has hired the Player that it is worth it to bombard the competition. * The fastest recorded build time of a beacon costing 25000 Iridium is 4.16 seconds. * The longest recorded time a base survived continual bombardment was around 18 minutes.